Rogers' Rangers was initially a provincial
company from the colony of New Hampshire, attached to the
British Army during the
Seven Years' War (called the
French and Indian War in the United States). The unit was quickly adopted into the British army as an independent ranger company. It was trained by Major
Robert Rogers as a rapidly deployable
light infantry force tasked mainly with
reconnaissance as well as conducting
special operations against distant targets. Their tactics, built on earlier colonial precedents, but codified for the first time by Rogers, proved remarkably effective, so much so that the initial company was expanded into a ranging corps of more than a dozen companies (containing as many as 1,200–1,400 men at its peak). The ranger corps became the chief scouting arm of British Crown forces by the late 1750s. The British valued them highly for gathering
intelligence about the enemy.